ADATA PV100 Power Bank Review

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Features & Specifications

ADATA PV100 Power Bank Features

The ADATA PV100 Power Bank will charge most devices that can receive power from a standard USB port. I’ve always had sketchy results when trying to mix and match AC wall chargers from different platforms and manufacturers. On the other hand, I’ve never had any compatibility issues when charging directly from a USB port on a PC, or from the USB port on any of my battery packs. As more and more portable devices move away from proprietary charging ports, the number of ways you can use a battery pack keeps increasing.

The biggest issue people have with rechargeable batteries is the time it takes to get them back to full charge. Think about how long it takes to fill your car or truck with gas. That’s an enormous amount of energy transferred in a very short time. Battery technology has a long way to go to match this level of performance and convenience. Doubling the power output from 1 ampere to 2.1A is a good start, though. Ever since the iPad came out with a 2.1A charging specification and the USB Battery Charging Specification Revision 1.2 was released in 2010, the defacto high current output option for chargers and battery packs has been set as 2.1A. The ADATA PV100 Power Bank does away with the old 1A port entirely, and sports a single 2.1A port for its charging output. While the small battery in my smartphone has some downsides, one upside is that I can charge it quickly. Don’t worry that the new high current outputs will harm your portable electronics. There are protection circuits inside your device that will limit the charging current to a safe value.

Increased power requires increased responsibility, otherwise bad things happen. Lithium batteries, in general, can be quite dangerous. If they catch on fire, it’s almost impossible to extinguish the flames. That’s why there are strict shipping and travel restrictions on lithium batteries. The ADATA PV100 Power Bank has six different protection mechanisms built into its circuitry that address these hazards. The first four deal with protecting the Power Bank, itself from harm. Most batteries are adverse to high temperatures, and the lithium polymer unit inside the PV100 is no exception. The over temperature protection guards against this. A common cause for high internal temperatures is the presence of a short circuit somewhere in the system, and the built in short circuit protection prevents this problem. Over voltage protection prevents damage from connecting a power source that’s the wrong voltage. Lastly, over charge protection prevents issues caused by trying to charge the internal battery beyond its rated capacity.

Once the ADATA PV100 Power Bank is connected to your device, two other protection modes are in play. Over discharge protection keeps the PV100 from sending its last gasp of electrical charge out to another device, keeping a small amount in reserve. This is important, because when some batteries approach zero charge, they exhibit strange and unpredictable behavior. Some of us are old enough to remember how this affected first and second generation PDA devices, and it wasn’t pretty. Modern phones have exactly the same kind of protection built into them to keep the system from corrupting data when it runs out of juice. In addition, there are limits to how much current you should pump into the device you are trying to charge. Even short bursts of uncontrolled current into a device might burn out some of the components inside. The over current protection built into the PV100 Power Bank prevents this from happening.

The specifications for the ADATA PV100 Power Bank are very basic, but there are two nuggets of information in there that are important to know. First, the weight of the PV100 is just 105g, which is lighter than my super-slim smartphone. It’s also substantially lighter and smaller than any of my other external battery packs. More on that later….. Second, the charging input on the PV100 is limited to 1A, which means it could take longer to charge the battery pack than it does to charge another device from the battery pack. There is one more specification that’s very important, and I found it in the User’s Manual. Yes I admit, I read it….. The rated capacity of the PV100 device is lower than the rated capacity of the battery inside. That’s absolutely normal, and every battery pack out there in the market is going to be the same, but the majority of vendors are going to withhold this information. So, just for the record, the rated capacity of the PV100 device as a whole is approximately 2900mAh, which is quite a bit lower than the rating of the bare battery that’s inside.

ADATA PV100 Power Bank Specifications:

Battery

Rechargeable Li-polymer

Colors

Black / White / Pink / Blue

Dimensions (L x W x H)

67 x 118 x 8mm / 2.6 x 4.6 x 0.3in

Weight

105g (3.5oz)

Input

5V 1.0A (Micro USB)

Output

5V 2.1A (Type-A USB)

Power Bank

4200 mAh

Warranty

1 Year

Now that we’ve seen the all features and the specs, follow along as Benchmark Reviews take a look at the ADATA PV100 Power Bank product that we have for in-house testing.